For years, largely as a result of government incentives to promote the use of renewable energies, considerable research has been conducted to solve the problems of fossil fuels. Examples which can be given here include wind energy, thermodynamic energy, biofuels, and hydrogen. In spite of all these efforts, however, it has still not been possible to make these forms of energy economically available in such a way that they are able to compete economically with conventional forms of energy conversion such as nuclear power, gas, and coal.
Considerable investments have already been made in the use of wind energy, and these have contributed to the development and realization of installations of single wind turbines and even of wind turbine farms. Converting wind energy by means of wind turbines suffers from the disadvantage that the yield of wind energy is extremely small, especially with respect to the cost of the development, production, and erection of these types of wind turbines or wind turbine farms. There is also the considerable disadvantage that these types of wind power machines can be operated only when the wind is strong enough, and the wind must indeed be very strong for this purpose. In addition, there are also considerable environmental disadvantages. These are expressed both in the unpleasant occurrence of noise but also in the creation of extremely irritating shadows, and the casting of shadows at extremely irritating frequencies. Nor can energy be produced consistently or at uniform levels, because the wind or the intensity of the wind is always changing.
An even greater disadvantage is the enormous amount of space required for machinery per unit of energy generated.